Tag Archives: Green Flag

Insurance, Illusion and Infamy

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Also see here.

Insurance, you say?

When I took on breakdown cover from Green Flag just four years ago, it cost me, as I recall, about £60. The AA were asking a lot more. I think it was about £250, though it may have been more. That was my “reward” for being with the AA for 38 years. When I rang to complain about their new member prices a few years previously  they basically told me to get lost, as there was no reduction for me, just a lifetime of servitude as a cash cow. I put up with it a while longer, as I am always a little afraid of changing insurance companies, but their prices rose and my standard of living fell, so I had to do something.

When I rang to cancel they offered me a better deal, based on the same deal they were currently doing for new members. I told him they should have thought of that when I had originally asked, as they had now pushed me to the point of no return.

Green Flag, which I have used to help with tyre changes twice in four years has been good, but they have doubled in price in four years, well ahead of the rate of inflation. This is even more noticeable as i hardly use the car these days.

St George – enamel on a Crown coin

I am now with Britannia, who are providing my cover for £99, about £30 less than Green Flag. Ironically, the AA, which does not seem to have gone up over the years, has a half price offer on and would have provided this cover for £110 – slightly less than Green Flag. Even the full rate appears to be lower than the price I paid four years ago. I won’t, of course, go back to the AA at the moment, because I’m still annoyed with their piratical pricing practices. The RAC has just had an offer that came in around the £99 mark. In their case I passed because I had arranged to transfer to them but they didn’t contact me to arrange it at the agreed time. You don’t want breakdown insurance with a company that might forget you, do you?

Something I find very interesting is that both the AA and RAC have comparison websites to telll you how much better they are than Green Flag and Britannia. I take these sites, and the special offers, to mean that more and more people are buying on cost these days.

When I told Green Flag I would not be renewing, guess what they said? Yes, straight from the playbook – they could reduce the price for me if that would get me to stay.

Car insurance companies are now supposed to offer the same price to existing customers as they do to new customers. This doesn’t seem to be the case with breakdown insurance. In fact I just looked this up – the new rules apply to car and household insurance, but testing the market still seems to indicate that you can get a discount by shopping around.

I remember a cartoon from many years ago – one City banker saying to another, “No, they didn’t banks can “police” themselves, they said banks can “please” themselves.” Same, I suspect, for insurance companies.

It was the Alex strip in The Independent but I can’t find the actual cartoon. Some of these are quite funny too. And these. And these . . .

St George – enamel on a Crown coin

After the Lord Mayor’s Show…

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I don’t know if the expression used in the title will be familiar to some of my overseas readers. It is often rendered as “After the Lord mayor’s Show comes the dustcart.” I assume it has been bowdlerised over the years, as the material collected after the show was clearly horse manure and not dust.

To sum up our day- seaside, egrets, owl,marshes, magic. And so Act One ends with out happy couple heading off into the sunset…

Actually it’s a bit early for sunset but the sun is falling and there is a hint of colour in the sky.

The conversation is interrupted by a “Ping!” and a warning light on the dashboard. It was the one that warns about a tyre losing pressure. No big worry, as they do it regularly and you have to pump them up.However, I did wonder…

I reset it. My reasoning is that if it doesn’t go again for weeks there isn’t a problem, but if it sounds again in a day or two you have a slow puncture.

Twenty miles later, it sounded again. By this time we were back in Sutton on Sea and I pulled into the Car park and called Green Flag. After the debacle of our last wheel change I didn’t want to risk it in a deserted car park in the growing dusk. (Actually it was nearly 4.30, so not quite night but getting uncomfortably close for a man with poor form in recent tyre changes.

I decided to walk down to the toilet as we’d had several drinks on the trip, and found that they were locked. It was 4.31, which is how I know the time.. I just checked – most of the toilets round there are locked at 4.00, apart from the ones that are locked on Sundays and the ones that are locked all winter. It can’t be an economy measure as the lights were still on in the locked toilets.

I think it’s just a way of inconveniencing elderly visitors.

Fortunately, by the time I got back to the car and took the spare out, the man from Green Flag arrived. This is top quality service, as well as being a lot cheaper than the AA.

We were soon back on four wheels and 200 yards later we were outside the chip shop. The darkened, closed chip shop. After a number of average visits it’s only the fact we’ve been going there for 30 years that keeps us going. They really are pushing their luck. I’d been looking forward to chips too.

We went further down the coast. It was dark by the time we reached Skegness and selected KFC for our meal. It’s good, reliable, has toilets and a car park. And it isn’t McDonald’s. McDonald’s are OK for snacks but this was our evening meal. We do not have high standards…

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Wicked Zinger Meal – why can’t they just call it a chicken sandwich meal?

It would be nice to report that we had an excellent meal and an uneventful trip home. We did have a good meal, mostly, but that will be another post. We didn’t quite have an uneventful journey home.

The conversation went like this.

“You should have stopped picking your nose fifty years ago.”

“I was clearing an obstruction in my nasal passages.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Do you have any tissues?”

Rustling in bag.

“No, but I’ve got a spare serviette from KFC.”

Sometimes, when you are driving, you just can’t manage a decent nose blow to clear your nasal passages and a good prod has to suffice. Unfortunately, when you are on Warfarin, a good prod can result in copious bleeding and a lecture on the habits of small boys and grown men being far too much alike.

We saw another owl later. First we saw the reflected light of its eyes as it flew across the road in front of us, then again as it turned towards us for a better look, which also enabled us to the the dumpy brown shape of what was probably a Tawny Owl. which isn’t a bad final memory of the day. With any luck, when we look back, we may forget that I had a serviette stuffed up my nose at the time.